game_design_snacksfandomcom-20200213-history
Dynamic Difficulty - Balances the Game to the Player's Skill Level
While many games let the player adjust the difficulty before the game begins, and some games let the player adjust the difficulty while the game is in progress if they find it is too easy or too hard, fewer games adjust the difficulty naturally based on how the player is doing. If the player does well, enemies might start to do more damage, or they might find less ammo in the environment. If the player starts taking more damage or failing to clear events, the game naturally eases things to help the player out. Resident Evil 4 Probably the best example of this is in Resident Evil 4. The game has two difficulty settings, Normal and Professional, but each mode has dynamically adjusting difficulty while the player plays through it. If the player is very accurate with their shooting and takes few hits, enemies and boxes will start dropping less ammo and health items. If the player starts taking more damage or runs low on ammo, the game will add more health items and ammo pickups to boxes to help the player out. Some weapons even have soft caps on the amount of ammo you can carry - for example, the game will not drop more ammo for the Mine Thrower weapon if the player has more than 9 Mine Thrower darts in their inventory. Halo: Combat Evolved Halo let the player choose the difficulty from several different levels. This allowed the game to cater to the casual players and the hardcore players, and players at different levels between. Halo ended up reaching a large target audience because of the ability to choose the difficulty. The later games in the series allowed the player to pick specific levels and change the level of difficulty of that level so the player could practice and get better. The ability to chance the difficultly at any time made Halo an engaging game for all skill levels . Dirt: Showdown Showdown has a form of dynamic difficulty adjustment that is unique to and useful for racing games. No matter what difficulty is selected, AI drivers are affected by DDA. For instance, if most drivers are far ahead of the player, they slow down slightly to prevent runaway victories. Inversely, they will speed up a little if the player is in the lead, to keep the player on their toes. In addition, there seems to be a higher chance of leading AI players making mistakes and crashing to give the player a chance to overtake them. Diablo III Diablo III has a good design in game difficult settings. In the beginning, there are 5 different levels for you to choose. As the game went by, the difficult and monster level will change dynamically according to player's level and equipment. You will never meet monsters whose level is great lower than you. And your reward will change dynamically according to the difficult level you are.